Internal strife must destroy a house divided against itself. But incompatible descendants of the same family can make a go of it on the same property if, after the shouting, they keep mostly to their own wings of it, agreeing to live and let live. Our war’s proximate purpose must be to achieve this: to stop the ruling class’s attacks, forcefully to suggest that peace can happen only on the basis of mutual acceptance of others’ otherness.
Unfortunately getting them to leave us alone requires using against them “images and invocations” at least as “violent and brutal” as have used against us. Our purpose cannot be to convince them they are ignoramuses, murderers of babies, cowardly parasitical drones, or self-worshipers who wallow in pornographic fantasies. We ought to show them, rather, that they cannot win this war, because we are not about to deplore ourselves as they deplore us.
In short, the Left’s effort to marginalize conservatives is double-edgeded sword: Inevitably, both sides marginalize each other. This truth is the key to understanding the next stage of America’s political war.
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